9th circuit refuses challenge to Tahoe building restrictions

RENO -- The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused property owners' challenge of home-building restrictions at Lake Tahoe on Friday, saying their bid for millions of dollars in damages is more than a decade late.

The appellate court in San Francisco upheld a district court's earlier dismissal of the lawsuit brought by more than 250 property owners organized as the Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council.

They had sued the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, accusing the bistate regulatory agency of unconstitutionally taking their property under a land-use policy adopted in 1987.

Specifically, they took issue with the agency's practice of limiting construction based on a system rating the environmental sensitivity of vacant lots.

While the circuit court stopped short of upholding the rating system, it made it clear the challenges no longer were valid.

"It is very good news," said John Marshall, a lawyer for the agency.

"It puts to bed probably the last challenge to the 1987 plan and really allows the basin to focus on the future instead of the past," he said Friday from Zephyr Cove.

Under the "Individual Parcel Evaluation System," lots surrounding Lake Tahoe were given numerical ratings based on such factors as slope, soil type and proximity to streams. Those rated below a certain level were not eligible for construction.

The bulk of the plaintiffs, 243 of them, own property on Tahoe's California side. Nine owners on the Nevada side also were plaintiffs.

Larry Hoffman, a lawyer who represented the plaintiffs, was traveling and not available for comment, an assistant at his law office in Tahoe City, said Friday.

The lawsuit did not list a dollar amount, but Hoffman earlier estimated the property values involved to total at least $9 million.

Marshall said the 9th circuit ruling concluded that claims against the 1987 plan "should have been brought soon after the adoption of the 1987 plan.

"They said there is a strong policy interest in resolving disputes about general land use plans soon after their adoption and that plaintiffs cannot find creative ways to file new lawsuits that should have been brought 15 years ago," Marshall said.

"In effect, they said we should all look forward instead of looking to the past.

The Tahoe planning agency will develop a new regional protection plan in 2007 "and that is where we should be focused on, not what transpired 10 to 15 years ago," he said.